1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a radio communication system that includes a plurality of wireless stations connected to a network and wireless apparatuses that access the wireless stations, and in particular, relates to a method for establishing communication between a wireless station and a wireless apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a radio communication system that includes a plurality of wireless stations, a wireless apparatus determines a wireless station to which the wireless apparatus connects. For example, in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11, which is a standard of a wireless local area network (LAN), wireless stations periodically send identification information for identifying the wireless stations to the surrounding area, and a wireless apparatus receives the identification information from the wireless stations. Then, the wireless apparatus determines a wireless station to which the wireless apparatus connects on the basis of the identification information. In this way, a connection between a wireless apparatus and a wireless station is established. In the foregoing radio communication system, connections from wireless apparatuses may be concentrated on a certain wireless station. Thus, a problem exists in that the capacity of a wireless station, on which connections from wireless apparatuses are concentrated, to send and receive data to and from wireless apparatuses and a wired network may be overloaded.
In view of this problem, for example, a method is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-221684, in which a wireless station sends a wireless apparatus an instruction to connect to another wireless station in the radio communication system upon determining that the wireless station is overloaded.
However, in this method, in a case where communication is performed between wireless stations and wireless apparatuses, even in the overload status, a wireless apparatus needs to receive, from a wireless station to which the wireless apparatus has sent a connection request, a request to connect to another wireless station. Thus, a problem exists in that the number of wireless apparatuses temporarily increases, which require intervention by wireless stations between the wireless apparatuses and a wired network in order to establish connections between wireless stations and wireless apparatuses.